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Friday, July 13, 2012

Twitter! Embarrass Yourself in Front of Celebrities!

So, as you may or may
not know, I have a Twitter account--although if you didn’t know, it takes only
an eye flick to the right to confirm that. I post random things that are
on my mind. Some are kind of funny, some are kind of boring, and some are
retweets from people whom are much smarter and more clever than I am.

For those of you not on
Twitter, they have these things that show up in your Twitter-feed called
“promoted tweets.” These are not actually tweets, really--they’re
advertisements that have paid to show up in your feed. But, since part of
twitter is retweeting what others tweet, you may not recognize it for what it
is at first.

I was bebopping along,
minding my own business, when a couple of tweets in my feed caught my eye.
It just so happened both of them were from Amazon. At first, I
thought they were just promoted, but promoted tweets say they are at the
bottom. These said they were retweeted by a couple of cool cats I
follow--Chuck Wendig and Wil Wheaton.

You could say I was
confused.

For example, Mr.
Wendig’s online persona is that of a bristly uncle--offering genuinely helpful
advice wrapped in a rough, sweary package. Like a good Samaritan grizzly
bear. However, being familiar with the show, Gilmore Girls did not seem
like his type of show. I realize I was ascribing cliched and typical
gender roles to him and the show, and I know better than that, but all the same,
it seemed like he would be into something with a little more grit. Once
again, painting with a simplistic brush, I know.Meanwhile, Wil Wheaton
is a very funny guy, so I thought maybe he was making a joke that I just wasn’t
getting--maybe something to do with smoking pot and listening to Dark of the
Moon while watching Wizard of Oz? But the more I thought about
it, the more odd it seemed.

I decided, I’d turn it
into a joke. I tweeted “@wilw and @ChuckWendig just retweeted promotions
from Amazon, which I don't think they’d do. Amazon, be you spammin’ and
scammin’?”

What was going through
my mind at the time was, If their accounts did get compromised or something,
I’m sure they’ll be glad to know. And if it was legit, they’ll probably
just ignore my tweets--if they even notice them. They are pretty famous,
afterall.

I took screen caps of
the suspect tweets, just to be safe.

Apparently, I fancy
myself a regular Sergeant Friday of Twitter or something.

I was going to go about
my day as normal when I saw Mr. Wendig’s response.

And then the worry-rats
began to feast upon my brain.

See, on the one hand, I
wanted them to know if something was up. On the other hand...I had the
sneaking suspicion that I had just made an ass of myself.

So, I tweeted to him a
screen cap of the tweet in question and said something along the lines of, “If
this is legit, I’m really sorry. I just don’t normally see these unless
they’re promoted.”

I couldn’t @ reply Wil
Wheaton in that one, but I made sure to tag both of them in the follow up,
where I linked to the screen cap of his tweet and said, “Here’s the other one,
too.”

And then I saw this:

Oh...shit...

I quickly sent a
follow-up tweet (pictured above) apologising again. Then, to permanently
erase my mistakes from the internet, and in the hopes to keep the same thing
from happening again if/when Wil Wheaton saw the tweets, I quickly went through
and deleted the offending tweets, kicking myself all the while.

I backed away from the
computer as the reality of what I’d done hit me.

So, after deleting all
evidence of my dumbassery,I of course felt the need to share my misadventures
with the world. If you can't laugh about things like this, what can you
do? I'm sure they pretty much immediately forgot about it, but it's
always nice to know that I can be such a sparkling example of cool and
collected in front of people I look up to.

And, if Chuck Wendig or
Wil Wheaton happen to be reading this (not likely, but AS YOU CAN SEE, I have a
knack for these sorts of things), I would like to just apologise again. I
offer you this picture of the two of you battling internet trolls to make up
for that.

I think things are cool. Wendig tweeted me and said "no worries." And Wil Wheaton favorited my tweet. But still, I always thought I had more competence with social interactions. Plus I'm sure the picture didn't hurt.

A) I'm impressed that Wendig saw your tweet and took the time to respond. B) Clearly he's human too and wasn't offended. C) HE CALLED YOU "DUDE"! Now you're BFF's.

Hahahaha! I only laugh because this is the type of thing we all dread doing, but we all do (Ironically, I posted about being an idiot in front of famous folk today on my blog). It's so hard not to look stalkerish/overanxious on Twitter.

I saw your original "spammin' and scammin'" tweet, but I wasn't savvy enough to know what it was about. I am now, though! This post was hilarious! I have yet to make an idiot of myself in front of a celebrity, except maybe my one and only encounter with Donny Osmond . . .

This where you post your head dumpings. I don't mind disagreement if you're polite, well-thought-out, and civil. However, I decide what is and isn't acceptable. I reserve the right for my underground dwelling Comment Goblins to capture and devour any post they see fit.

NaNo Progress

About Me

J. M. Dow's owner pressed the B button, preventing him from evolving into his final form. He's had a fascination with dark, weird things since he was a little kid sneaking into the living room to watch late-night reruns of Tales from the Crypt. He lives in Northwest Arkansas with his wife and weenie dog.